2023 – Remembering 9/11/01
I was 27 years old when terrorists attacked our country on September 11, 2001.
Diesel cost less than a dollar a gallon, cheaper than gasoline at the time. I brought home $1,260 a month from my job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Department. I was what most people call a government catcher.
In 2001, my rent was two hundred and eighty dollars a month, and electricity and water were less than a hundred dollars each. I didn’t actually have a cell phone, credit card or anything. I had a Dodge truck, a horse trailer and a few cows on my dad’s land.
My neighbor had just sold his entire calf crop to a cattle buyer the first week of September. The cattle buyer bought them from his farm and did not have to pay any commission. My neighbor’s calves brought $500 each. A few weeks after the terrorist attacks, I sold my calves at the sale barn and they averaged $352. I will never forget how the stock markets and agricultural futures markets collapsed in the weeks after the attacks.
One day, a few weeks after the attacks, my boss asked me if I would be interested in helping in New York. He told me that the birds were starting to move south along the east coast and that they were having problems with the birds eating the remains. He said government trappers in New York worked every day of the week and were exhausted and needed help. I volunteered locally.
I’ll never forget my wife asking why I volunteered for such a terrible job. I almost fainted when she broke her nose working on the cattle because I hate the sight of blood. I wasn’t really trained in search and rescue operations and had never seen anything even remotely as bad as what I had signed up for. I guess she was afraid I’d pass out up there. I just thought someone HAD to do the job. I also had a strong feeling that I would not let the fear of a terrorist stop me from doing what needed to be done.
I was a little nervous and a little scared, but I was also angry. The terrorist did not attack a military target, but a group of people who simply got up one morning and went to work. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that the terrorists were pretty sorry for what they had done, kind of chicken shit to put it politely.
When I was planning the trip, I realized that I needed money for the plane ticket and my meals in advance. I had to go to the bank and borrow money for the trip; the USDA would reimburse me later. I didn’t have a credit card or enough cash on hand.
Late one evening I flew to Newark, New Jersey. The first thing I saw was a lady chewing an airport employee on one side and the other because her long fur coat was hanging in an escalator. A man picked me up at baggage claim and took me to a cheap motel. My bed had vomit stains on one side and on the carpet in the floor. I didn’t say a word to anyone, all the motels were fully booked and there were no beds left anyway.
We stayed in Edison, New Jersey, which is just a few miles from Trenton, New Jersey. While the World Trade Center cleanup effort in Trenton was run by some idiot, New Jersey was shipping anthrax to politicians in Washington DC. While I was there, a lot of bad things happened in and around New York.
The next morning we headed to the Fresh Kills landfill before dawn. The debris from Ground Zero was taken to the landfill for sorting. They searched the landfill for remains of the victims, aircraft parts and other evidence. The job was dirty. We were told not to wear our official USDA clothing because it was so dirty. However, before I flew out, my boss warned me that the real reason they didn’t want us to wear our uniforms was because they didn’t know if terrorists would try to kidnap or kill workers working at the Recovery efforts helped.
Needless to say, I kept an eye out for anything that seemed suspicious and always had a weapon or two on hand. Before I left, my father showed me how to make a few simple weapons, things he had learned in Vietnam. When I was there I was never very afraid.
I worked day after day until dark, hunting seagulls, crows and a few other species of birds. We also caught rats around the landfill because they were just as guilty as the birds. The job was sad, disgusting and necessary, it had to be done.
A few nights after work we drove into Manhattan and walked around the chain-link fence that enclosed the site where the world trade centers once stood. Ground Zero was much bigger than it looked on TV. It’s hard to guess how many acres there are, but it took us about three hours to walk around.
After my tour I returned home, back to Oklahoma, my life as a coyote, beaver and co. catcher. I will never forget those days in New York, the people I met and how tired so many of them looked. I ended up doing two tours of the Fresh Kills landfill. The work lasted nine months after the attacks.
To this day I still don’t understand how great the hatred of these terrorists was. I think that’s what bothered me the most over the years. I can understand attacking a military target, but attacking a bunch of normal working people still doesn’t make sense to me.
I see so many young people today who don’t know what life was like in the United States before the events of September 11, 2001.
Before 9/11, there wasn’t much security at airports. TSA and Homeland Security did not exist until then. Before the attacks, no one could have imagined that an airplane could be used as a missile. Today you are not allowed to take a bottle of Eau de Cologne on a plane.
America changed dramatically after that day. Our eyes have been opened to a new form of warfare. One without a flag, nation or standing army. The terrorism was unlike anything our nation had ever experienced.
Most of the people who planned and assisted in the September 11 attacks are now dead. The War on Terror lasted nearly twenty years, the longest war in U.S. history. For some it was just on TV or the internet. For me it was much more. I was there and will never forget it.
God bless the USA and God bless our troops.
Team Leader Seagull Control Program/World Trade Center Restoration Efforts
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